Djokovic and Ruud will play the final of the Tournament of Champions, doubles will also be on offer

One of the most watched events of the tennis season is coming to a head. The Tournament of Champions, hosted by Turin’s Pala Alpitour arena, has both finals on Sunday. In the singles, Novak Djokovic will be aiming for a sixth title at the prestigious event, challenging Casper Ruud in the final battle.

The event, officially titled Nitto ATP Finals 2022, takes place in the northern Italian capital without the participation of the world number one. Nineteen-year-old Spaniard Carlos Alcaraz was stopped by an abdominal muscle injury. Also missing from the tournament is last year’s champion Alexander Zverev, who has not played since a serious ankle injury in June.

The highest-ranked tennis player in the ATP rankings out of the eight singles participants was Rafael Nadal. However, the world number two did not advance from the Green Group, nor did Canadian youngster Félix Auger-Aliassime. Casper Ruud and Taylor Fritz, on the other hand, were happy to advance to the semi-finals.

The Red Group was dominated by Novak Djokovic, with Andrey Rublyov taking the second place. His compatriot Daniil Medvedev lost all three of his matches, so this stage was the final one for him and also for Stefanos Tsitsipas.

Djokovic and Fritz faced each other in the playoffs, with the Serbian star winning after two successful tiebreaks, the final scores of which were 7::5 and 8::6. The holder of 21 Grand Slam titles has triumphed at the season-ending event five times in the past and another victory would equal the record holder Roger Federer in the number of ATP Finals titles.

Norway’s Ruud will also play his final on the hard surface in Turin. The Northerner’s semi-final performance was fairly straightforward. Thanks to nine straight wins, he beat Rublyov 6: 2 and 6: 4. The match lasted only seventy minutes.

The clash for the title is scheduled for Sunday at 7 pm. The Tournament of Champions can be watched live on Eurosport 2.

The highlight of the doubles competition will be the match between the seeded foursome from Croatia, Nikola Mektic and Mat Pavic, and the tournament runners-up. These are the American-British duo of Rajeev Ram, Joe Salisbury.

Mektic and Pavic took on Lloyd Glasspool of Great Britain and Harri Heliovaara of Finland in the semifinals. After sets of 6::4 and 6::7 they dominated the deciding super tiebreak 10::6.

Rama and Salisbury needed two sets on Saturday. They defeated Dutchman Wesley Koolhof and his teammate Brit Neal Skupski after partial scores of 7: 6 and 6: 4.

French doubles players Pierre-Hugues Herbert and Nicolas Mahut dominated last year’s event, winning just against Ram and Salisbury. This year’s final will be played from 4pm on Sunday.

Source: ATP, Eurosport 2